Up-to-the minute updates and insights from the Red Wings locker room at home and on the road. By Chuck Pleiness of The Macomb Daily.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Thoughts on Game 27 (4-1 win in Montreal)

-- Detroit's special teams have been great of late. The Wings have a power-play goal in nine straight games. On the penalty-kill, this was the third straight game that the Red Wings have not allowed a goal and the sixth time in the past nine games. The Wings have outscored their opponents 13-5 on special teams over the past nine games.-- Dominik Hasek looked fine. Unless he backslides, he's the playoff goalie."It's nice to get a winning feeling back, be on the ice," said Hasek, who hasn't had a win in 25 days. "It's something I was missing for the last … I don't know, maybe three weeks since I won my last game. That's a long time. I'm glad to play the game again and win even though it wasn't much work."-- For more than half of this game, coach Mike Babcock split apart the Heavenly Twins, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Although Datsyuk is much hotter than Zetterberg and the Wings' second leading goal-scorer, Tomas Homlstrom, played on Datsyuk's wing ... the Canadiens matched up their top defense and forwards against Zetterberg's line. It's as if the Habs were playing with a two-month old scouting report.-- I like how Babcock uses his personnel on special teams like a baseball manager would a closer. If the Wings are short-handed and there's just 15 seconds left to kill, Babcock will throw Nicklas Lidstrom and Chris Chelios over the boards even though that will mix up his defense pairings for the next couple of minutes. Babcock wants to lock up the penalty-kill, like bringing in a sure-thing closer.-- It's difficult to believe that there's another player better than Datsyuk. The last Red Wing I've seen play at this level on both ends was Sergei Fedorov in 1993-94."He can do anything," said Hasek of Datsyuk. "I don't think his game has any weaknesses if I look at him. He can shoot slap shot, wrist shot, backhand shots, he can play great defense. Overall, he's a strong player. … He's one of the top three in the NHL, that's my feeling, on both sides of the ice."

"If the Wings are short-handed and there's just 15 seconds left to kill, Babcock will throw Nicklas Lidstrom and Chris Chelios over the boards even though that will mix up his defense pairings for the next couple of minutes."

Earlier in the season, there were a lot of goals scored against the Wings on the first shift after a PK. I figured it was fatigue, because Mikey was using 4 dif. pair of forwards on the PK.

That has not happened lately, and the Lids/Cheli move you mentioned may be the reason.